Monday, December 24, 2012

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Sometimes my customer asked why the software product that I am working on display well on Windows XP but Windows 7? I guess screenshot below illustrated using Office Excel and Task Manager is self-explanatory.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

From a forwarded email. Lets us have lots of foresight from other's hindsight.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr RICHARD TEO: Last words on $$$, true joy, God -- and Ferraris

Wednesday, 24 October 2012 21:00

Below is a condensed version of what Dr. Richard Teo shared at a Christian fellowship meeting on 24 Nov 2011, about 8 months after he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. He spoke about several key life lessons. He died last Thursday (Oct 18) at 40.

Dr Richard Teo

Hi, good morning to all of you. My voice is a bit hoarse from the chemotherapy, so please bear with me. My name is Richard, I’m a friend of Danny’s, who invited me here.

I’d just begin to say that I’m a typical product of today’s society. From young, I’ve always been under the influence and impression that to be happy, is to be successful. And to be successful, is to be wealthy. So I led my life according to this motto.

Coming from a poor average family, back in those days, I was highly competitive, whether in sports, studies, leadership. I wanted it all. I’ve been there, done that. But at the end of the day, it’s still about money.

So in my recent years, I was a trainee in ophthalmology, but I was getting impatient, cos I had friends of mine who were going out into private practise, making tonnes of money. And there I was, stuck in a traineeship.

So I said, ‘Enough, it’s getting too long.’ At that time, there was a surge in protégés of aesthetic medicine. I saw good money in there. So much so that I said, ‘Forget about ophthalmology, I’m gonna do aesthetic medicine.’ So that’s what I did.

The truth is, nobody makes heroes out of the average GP in the neighbourhood. They don't. They make heroes out of rich celebrities, politicians, rich and famous people. So I wanted to be one of these.

I dived straight into aesthetic medicine. People were not willing to pay when I was doing locum back in those days. Anything more than $30, they would complain that “Wah, this lo kun(doctor) jing qwee (very expensive)”. They made noise and they were not happy. But the same people were willing to pay $10 000 for a liposuction. So I said, ‘Well, let’s stop healing the sick, I’m gonna become a beautician; a medically-trained beautician.’

And that was what I did – liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid surgeries, you name it, we do it. It was very good money. My clinic, when we started off, waiting time was 1 week; 1 month became 2 months became 3 months. There was so much demand that people were literally queuing up to have aesthetic work done on them. Vain women – easy life!

So the clinic grew. I was so overwhelmed, from 1 doctor, I employed 2, then 3, then 4 doctors, and carried on. Nothing is ever enough. I wanted more and more and more. So much so that we set up shop in Indonesia to lure all the Indonesian tai tai’s. We set up shop, set up a team of people there, to get more Indonesian patients to come in.So, things were doing well. I’m there, my time has arrived.

Around some time in February last year, I said, ‘OK, I have so much spare cash, it’s time to get my first Ferrari. So there I was, getting ready for the deposit. OK! There comes my first Ferrari! I was looking for land, to share with some of my friends. I have a banker friend who makes $5 million a year. So I thought, ‘Come, let’s come together. Let’s buy some land and build our houses.’

In March 2011, out of the blue – I was still running around, ‘cause I’m a gym freak and I always go to the gym training, running, swimming 6 days a week. I had some backache, and that’s all I had, but it was persistent. And so I went for an MRI to exclude prolapsed disc. And the day before I had my scan, I was still in the gym, lifting heavy weights, doing my squats. And the next day, they found that half my spine had bone marrow replacement. I said, “Woah, sorry, what’s that?”

We had a PET scan the next day, and they diagnosed that I had terminal lung cancer, stage 4B. It had spread to the brain, half the spine, whole of my lungs were filled with tumour, liver, adrenals…

I said, “Can’t be, I was just at the gym last night, what’s going on?” I’m sure you know how it feels – though I’m not sure if you know how it feels. One moment I was there at the peak, the next day, this news came and I was totally devastated. My whole world just turned upside down.

I couldn’t accept it. I have a hundred relatives on both sides, my mom and my dad. 100 of them. And not a single one has cancer. To me, in my mind, I have good genes, I’m not supposed to be having this! Some of my relatives are heavy chain smokers. Why am I having lung cancer? I was in denial.

One cigarette a day

Dr Teo: "We had a PET scan the next day, and they diagnosed that I had terminal lung cancer, stage 4B. It had spread to the brain, half the spine, whole of my lungs were filled with tumour, liver, adrenals… I said, 'Can’t be, I was just at the gym last night, what’s going on?' One moment I was there at the peak, the next day, this news came and I was totally devastated." Photo: Internet

Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate. If you add up breast, colorectal (colon) cancer, and prostate cancer (the top few cancers in Singapore for men and women), if you add up the mortality rate of these 3, it still doesn’t add up to lung cancer. Simply because, you understand, you can remove the prostate, the colon, the breast, but you cannot remove your lungs.

But there’s about 10% of lung cancer patients who do pretty well for some reason because they have this specific mutation; we call it the EGFR mutation. And it happens, only 90% of the time, in Asian ladies who never smoked in their lives. Me, first of all, I’m male. Secondly, I’m a social smoker. I take one a day after dinner; weekends, when my friends offer me, I take it as well. I’m a light smoker, not a social smoker. But still, my oncologist was still not hopeful for me to have this mutation.

The chances of it happening for me was maybe 3-4%. That’s why I was being primed to go for chemo. But through all the intense prayers, friends like Danny, people that I don’t even know, it turned out that, during my waiting for chemo, the results came back that I was EGFR positive. I was like, “Woah, good news!” Cos now I don’t have to undergo chemo at that time, because there’s this oral tablet that you can use to control this disease.

Just to share with you some idea – this is a CT scan – thorax – of my lungs, before treatment.

Every single dot there is a tumour. You can see all the mets (metastasis) there. This is just one single plane. Literally I had it in both lungs, and I had literally tens of thousands of tumour. That’s why the oncologist told me, even with chemo, at most 3-4 months.

But because of this mutation, they have this oral medication. This is what happened after 2 months of treatment. As you can see over here; this is what God can do. And that’s why I’m still here having this opportunity to share with you. As you can see over here, the difference between before and after treatment.

At that point, I said, “Well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it? The medicine is good.” I’m still not buying the story. Well, the guys prayed for me and the tumour markers started to come down. 90% of the tumours were wiped out, and the tumour markers came down to more than 90% over the next few months.

But still, you know, once you have the clinical knowledge, you know the statistics. One year survival, two year survival... having all this knowledge is not a good thing. Cos you live with the knowledge that even with all this, the cancer cells are so unstable, they keep mutating. They will overcome and become resistant to the drugs, and eventually you’re gonna run out of medication.

So living with this knowledge is a huge mental struggle, a huge mental torture. Cancer is not just about a physical struggle, it’s a huge mental torture. How do you live with no hope? How do you live with not being able to plan for the next few years? The oncologist tells you to bear with it for the next 1 – 2 months. So it’s a lot of struggles as I went through: March, then April. April was my lowest point, in deep depression, struggling even as I was recovering.

Hardship can happen to rich people; it can be physical hardship, mental hardship, social, etc. And also over the last few months, I started to understand what this true joy is about. In the past, I substituted true joy with the pursuing of wealth. I thought true joy is about pursuing wealth. Why? Cos let me put it to you this way, in my death bed, I found no joy whatsoever in whatever objects I had – my Ferrari, thinking of the land I was going to buy to build my bungalow etc, having a successful business.

It brought me ZERO comfort, ZERO joy, nothing at all. Do you think I can hold onto this piece of metal and it’s going to give true joy? Nah, it’s not going to happen.

What true joy is

Chinese New Year... I would drive my Ferrari, show off to my relatives, show off to my friends, do my rounds, and then you thought that was true joy? You really think that those guys who sold you your Ferrari, they share their joy with you? And your relatives, wow, they share this joy with you? In truth, what you have done is just to elicit envy, jealousy, and even hatred. They are not sharing the joy with you, and what I have is that short-term pride that wow, I have something you don’t have! And I thought that was joy!

So what we have is basically short-term pride at the expense of somebody else. And that wasn’t true joy. And I found no joy at all on my deathbed, thinking of my Ferrari – to hold on to it, sayangit?!?

True joy I discovered comes from interaction. Over the last few months I was so down. Interaction with my loved ones, my friends, my brothers in Christ, my sisters in Christ, and only then was I able to be motivated, able to be uplifted. To share your sorrow, to share your happiness – that’s true joy.

And you know what makes you smile? True joy comes from helping others in hardship, and because I’ve gone through this, I know what hardship entails. In fact, there’re some cancer patients who tell me a lot of times, people come up to them and tell them, “Stay positive. Stay positive.” Yah, right. You come in my shoes and you try to stay positive! You don’t know what you’re talking about!

But I have the licence. So I’ve been going out to meet other fellow cancer patients, to share with them, encourage them. And I know, because I’ve been through it, and it’s easier for me to talk to them.

And most importantly, I think true joy comes from knowing God. Not knowing about God – I mean, you can read the bible and know about God – but knowing God personally; getting a relationship with God. I think that’s the most important. That’s what I’ve learnt.

So if I were to sum it up, I’d say that the earlier we sort out the priorities in our lives, the better it is. Don’t be like me – I had no other way. I had to learn it through the hard way. I had to come back to God to thank Him for this opportunity because I’ve had 3 major accidents in my past – car accidents. You know, these sports car accidents – I was always speeding but somehow I always came out alive, even with the car almost being overturned.

There is nothing wrong with being rich or wealthy. I think it’s absolutely alright, cos God has blessed. So many people are blessed with good wealth, but the trouble is I think a lot of us can’t handle it. The more we have, the more we want. I’ve gone through it -- the deeper the hole we dig, the more we get sucked into it, so much so that we worship wealth and lose focus. Instead of worshipping God, we worship wealth. It’s just a human instinct. It’s just so difficult to get out of it.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

In Cantonese say, when something doesn't work well for you, your birth date probably doesn't 'match' with that something. That's what my friend said is happening to my new MacBook Pro and me.

Well, when I first got it, downloading and installing Google Chrome took me few hours and the process was very frustrated. The root cause was the downloaded file was corrupted although it said download completes. Oh well, maybe it is Google Chrome birth date doesn't match with MacBook Pro or Apple, I hope. But after using the machine for few days, on one day the Text Edit hang. I pressed the Spotlight shortcut key few times and it also was hang. Out of a sudden, display color was inverted. I have to go to preferences > Accessibility to check Invert Color in order to view RGB color. The painful part is that the pixel is out. The screen display was very blurry. Called to Apple Care helps to make the display slightly better, but... it is still painful looking at blurry screen and text!

I am now backing up data at Switch center, to send the MacBook for repair. It may took 2-3 days to diagnose the problem, another 3 or 5 or 7 days to fix the problem. Sounds a bit long right? Another 4 min for the data to be backed up. Bye. Finger crossed and hopefully the MacBook after repair has a new birth date that we can live happily ever after haha.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

World Vision Malaysia is organizing a Walk-a-thon in conjunction with Hands Up for Children Campaign.
If you agree that children is the future of the world. If you wish to do some charity. If you wish to do some exercise. If you wish to join the fun. Or, for no reason at all, if you are available on that day, I encourage you to register and join them. Feel free to share this with your family and friends :)
More details are as below.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Did you watch badminton game sometimes? If you did, you probably aware that Lin Dan do have a certain action after he won a point. That could be one of the NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) that we will do certain things or action, subconsciously, under certain conditions.

Long story short, I figured when I am happy, I like to tap. For example when the car is stopped waiting for traffic light to turn green, if I am happy I will tap on the steering while listening to music. Or sometimes tap on one's shoulder or back. I realized the tap was influenced by this happy song. Well I cannot clap all the while, so tap instead. Have you figured your NLP? ;)

Sunday, October 7, 2012

In one of the cable car ride from Genting Highland, I was with a foreigner couple with a kid looks around 4 years old. The mother explained to the kid about the tropical forest, and how is it different from their motherland's.

The mother then passed a yellow colour water bottle to the kid. The kid declined and insisted on a green colour. The mother patiently tell, "Sometimes we can't always get what we want in life, we just have to accept what we've got." The kid asked why. The mother just repeat the same sentence as answer, patiently. The kid accepted the answer and happily take the yellow colour bottle. I found it inspiring, sometimes we can't always get what we want in life, we just have to accept, love and appreciate what we've got. If I was the kid and it was my mom, I think the answer I will get is just "Don't ask." lol.

Later the mother asked the kid, "xx, where is Jesus?". (Nah I am not a Christian but I think this is meaningful to share).

Kid: Mmm, I don't know.

Mother: Remember, when we were in Africa, Jesus is up there in the sky.

Kid: Jesus is up there in the sky (He pointed to the sky), and also here (The kid placed his palm near his heart).

The mother continued to tell the kid more about life, but I can't recall the contents.

I do not know if the kid really understand it but I think the mother did a very good job. As long as a religion lead a person to be kind, humble, and other good moral values, it is a good belief. A religion is far beyond the statues and statutes.

The conversations stopped here because we'd reached the base station. However, the inspiring dialogue stayed in my mind till today.

In one of the volunteer session at autism center, a clever autistic kid insisted to get a green color tambourine. He cried and yelled to die for one. The mother just let him cried and yelled. The noise affected other kid then I went to get one for him. He stopped making noise and happily follow the musical session. One of the mother later told me I should have not did that. Sometimes we need to be assertive for the autistic kid to learn "Sometimes we can't always get what we want in life, we just have to accept what we've got." This will avoid a kid to be spoil. I think the same applies to all kid. I tried and it works. Education starts when one was born and cease on the last day in life. 活到老，学到老!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

How important is customer relationship management? WWF Malaysia has been doing that since I joined. World Vision Malaysia has started to do that as I can see. Even charity body is doing that, needless to say commercial business. If you are a business owner, give it some thoughts. Keep a record of your customer's birthday and send them greeting email/sms on that day or in prior. Do the same during festive seasons as well. I heard there is software program in the market which can ease the job, although I am not sure about the price.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

When I was in Beijing in year 2009, there were comments flying around that China's technology might be one of the top in the world. Infrastructure development in Beijing was surprisingly fast and well. However, when you still see residents spit on the street regardless of their age, you will know, their culture is not catching up with the speed of urban development.

Looking back at Malaysia, there are still LOTS more to be developed and built. Are we, both culture and development really catching up approaching 2020?

Monday, September 24, 2012

When the Windows task bar meet Metro style application icons, the squarish block is what we would be expecting.

Well, I still like it when it is not too Metro, like those at the right. Too metro could be a bit too much. Not every building in the city is square in shape. Not every car is
square in shape . Not every sign board has square corner, some is rounded.

Friday, September 21, 2012

These two are more than 15 years old hand drawn emoji by a customer.
The left is a smiley face (When the product is working fine).
The right is a sad face (When the product isn't working).
Small thing but it makes reading customer's issue email job entertaining sometimes ;)
Let's make the life fun :D

Monday, September 17, 2012

Look at the schedule above, can you find what is the actual showing time for the news?
I can see user centered design and usability improvement in general, however, the content should be accurate as well :) Hope they have fixed it.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

While winamp is playing music files, if I go to copy some huge files (> 500M I think) then there will be a very short period of special sound effect in the song. It happended when the copy operation first started, probably when Windows preparing the buffer or what. It sounds like Winamp got 'shocked' when copying large file ;)

Not sure if it will happened on Windows Media Player (WMP). It never is my favorite player and do not bother to find out.

Well, there is also special sound effect when sign-in to msn sometimes. The muted speaker will be un-muted for a very short moment. Can't remember the details now.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

When you see X, what appears in your mind?
X-Men? X-ray. I guess Don't Care seldom appears in one mind. During college study on digital electronics subject, the X value represents Don't Care. Nah, I am not trying to say anything technical, it just meant Don't Care ;)

Allow me to shift the focus a little. I read from a forwarded email that in this world, there are only three type of matters.

Can you instruct the sun to goes down or the stars to come out?
Can you stop the earth from spinning?
So we can't control universe nature's matters :)

Can you control what people think about you? Oh yes you can do/say something to change one's mind slightly, but you have no control over one's mind.
When you see someone fell down and you offered your hands. If one's decided to stay there, your hands will numb in the air.
Okay, you have no control on other's matters.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's quote to support this ;) By the way, to control other is never in my list :p

Can you look at the mirror and smile?
Can you blink your eyes?
Can you now sit down and stand up?
Yes, we have control's on our own matters. However, sometimes there are still things that we ourselves lack of control.
Sometimes you can't help falling into someone when first met.
Sometimes you can't help following one's word/path.
But you will realize one day you can actually control how you think, what you say, what you eat, etc.

In summary,

Whose matters

Can you Care?

Can you Control?

Will you Care?

Will you Control?

1. The universe nature's matters

Yes

No

?

?

2. Other people's matters

Yes

No

?

?

3. My own matters

Yes

Yes

?

?

For the blanks, it is your choice to put X, or Yes :)
But keep in mind, things changed, and we will changed depends on situation and environment too. Nothing is absolute.
As long as you are happy :)

Monday, September 10, 2012

How tall do I need to be to put things on the shelf? It is a 2x2 wall tile, so I think the shelf is around 6 feet height from the floor. My height is around 5 feet. I have tried every possible jump I could make, but to no avail. I gave up, just ignored its existence and keep praying hard it won't fall on my head while using the toilet... It looks solid but after flyover collapse cases, I am less certain :p

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

In July few friends facebook me saying my hometown Lenggong is now declared a world heritage site by Unesco "Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley". I guess I should write more about Lenggong. Give me some time, I need to dig if I can find photo about the topic I wish to share, or else I will have to take some in future trip back home.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Today there was one reader came to my blog using search keyword "why Luang Phor Thuad dies in Lenggong", so I think I hope to share what I have heard from the villagers. According to them, the location where he reaches nirvana belong to Thai in many years ago. Then gradually the border line moved up and up which no one know the reasons (maybe there will be historical writing about this but we are not passionate to find out :p ), then that place belong to Malaysia now. So I am a Malaysian, if not I will have to say Sawadee Ka or Sawadee Kap instead of 你好吗 or Apa Khabar ;)

Saturday, September 1, 2012

If you have a Malaysia EPF account, it is good to check your nomination status from time to time although you may have submitted the nomination form. EPF updated their system recently and my nomination is shown Incomplete. I strongly recommend you to check yours and update accordingly, to protect your love ones :)

Friday, August 24, 2012

The above bring different meaning to me before and after attended the meditation classes. Before meditation, it will mean my goal, my will. After meditation, it means the reactivity when things happen, yes, awareness, knowing what happened when it happened. Watch my own reactivity when the thoughts come; Watch my own reactivity when I deal with people; Watch my own reactivity when I deal with myself; Watch my own reactivity when....

Try to attend some when you have chance. Try to attend those with practice + practical theory. What changed you from time to time? Meditation changed me the most although I am just beginner and have not practice it formally :)

Friday, June 29, 2012

When you make any phone call which requires to spell out word alphabet by alphabet, what word do you usually used for an alphabet? I've used to use country name for that. But if I will be calling to software company, let's try to have fun by using software/programming term :)

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

If you can read picture above with no difficulties, please be happy :)
If you can easily write sentence above, please be happy :)

Some of the kid in Lions REACh may not be able to. I would be more than happy if the kid above can write the sentence on his own :) All the best to all of them, and of course you as well :) Have a good day!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Hmm, it is 11pm and I have not go to bed. Just would like to write this before I forgot. If not this will never be written if I do not do it today. Arghh, still pending on the writings of Koh Lipe and Europe sharing.

Back to the topic. The consumer tablet market has been getting more and more competitive. I personally feel it is good, more choices. If you love to read, shall you buy an ebook reader or a table?
If you google "kindle vs ipad", there are a lot of opinions on the web.

In short,buy Kindle or B&N Nook IF:

you are a serious text-based book reader

you are looking for device mobility where it is light and small to carry around

looking for e-INK technologies device. There are claims this technology is less harmful to eye. Well, when I google about that, there are actually some opinion saying backlight and e-ink make no difference. However, I personally felt e-ink is more comfortable for longer reading period.

don't mind the book is in black and white (text-based book is usually black and white anyway)

buy ipad or tab IF:

beside reading, you hope to do something else, e.g. movie, game and surfing.

beside text-based book, you hope to read magazine and newsletter with color as well.

don't really bother about the size and weight. Nah, you won't take the device out, you usually use it only at home.

you just like the user experience of the finger work when using ipad or tab. (That is the coolest thing in my younger colleagues world)

it's trend to use tablet, why bother the black and white reader?

I have chosen an eBook reader - Kindle Touch.

A side story. When I travel MAS from KL to Penang, I accidentally left my Kindle in the front pocket. I am so happy that MAS worker reported it to Lost and Found department and I got back my unit after visit their office by bringing along my boarding pass and IC. Thumb up to MAS! Just wonder if it was Air Asia, will it be the same? Lesson learnt. Always check the front pocket before leave the seat.千金难买一回头

Saturday, April 21, 2012

"You don't need to be colossal to be a great heart." It touches me.
"And the kings are all fools. Where is the honor when a solemn promise is just a pretty lie, and the mighty mock the courage of the humble" It reminded me of my country.
The movie scene.

MK where have you been? No blog updates, and never see you doing facial in facebook. Well, besides bla bla bla, bla bla bla, I usually spent my time doing La Jin (stretching) at night :) Starting from 10 min each leg, to 30 min sometimes, I am loving it, La Jin :)